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Alcatel-Lucent teams with NEC to develop next-gen mobile technology |
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by Ian Grayson
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Wednesday, 13 February 2008 |
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Struggling telecoms equipment company Alcatel-Lucent is undertaking a joint venture with NEC that will focus on development of Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless technology.
LTE is the next step in the ongoing development of mobile phone networks and will provide data speeds of around 100 megabits per second.Announced at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, the joint venture will involve the companies combining their research and development teams that are focused on LTE. The first commercial releases based on the work of the teams should appear during 2009.“This strategic collaboration with NEC is driven by scale, time to market and product excellence objectives and it will put us in a strong position to ride the next wave of transformation in the wireless industry,” said Alcatel-Lucent CEO Patricia Russo.The announcement comes as Alcatel-Lucent is struggling to stem large losses. The company reported a net loss of $3.7 billion in the quarter ending December 31 and $5.1 billion for the year.Success in the quickly evolving area of LTE is critical for the company as it will represent the next large wave of investment by mobile carriers around the world.
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